


Across A World Where All Men Weep

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama/Romance, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 06:11:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months after Jim's death, Blair discovers his diary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across A World Where All Men Weep

## Across A World Where All Men Grieve

by M. Leigh Frank  


Simon nearly ripped the book out of Blair's hands when he began to read the poem. "What the hell is that?" 

Blair looked at him, his blue eyes a mixture of anger and impossible sadness. "It's Jim's diary," he said hoarsely. "Dated today. Almost..." His voice broke on the word. "Almost as if he knew..." 

"That's ridiculous," Simon snapped, determined not to let Blair fall apart on him again. It never helped and it played hell with Simon's emotions, too. "Jim just skipped a page or something. Misdated it, maybe." 

The anthropologist shook his head, and Simon missed seeing a long curtain of hair move with the motion. Blair rubbed a hand over his newly shaved tresses. "He knew, man," he said softly. "He knew." 

"What makes you think--" 

"The last entry before this," Blair cut him off, "is the day he died. Six months of blank pages, and suddenly, here's a page with something on it. That's not coincidence, Simon. Not when it's dated -today-." 

Simon turned his head to avoid noticing when Blair wiped a tear that had finally overrun its border and was making its way down the younger man's cheek. "Sandburg, that's just nuts," he said gruffly. 

"And just maybe it was precognition," Blair retorted angrily. "Who knows what new abilities Jim might have acquired if he'd lived? Maybe this one had just begun to manifest itself." 

"And maybe," Simon cut Blair off this time, "you're looking for any excuse to reach out and touch the man you loved. Blair," he went on softly, "Jim's been dead for six months. He fell asleep on stakeout and got caught out by Hellerman's goon. It was nobody's fault; no one's to blame. Sometimes, shit just...happens." 

Blair sniffed hard, turning to pound a fist into the wall. "C'mon, Simon!" he shouted. "He fell asleep because I kept him up most of the night doing--" The Guide abruptly snapped his mouth shut. 

Simon smiled humorlessly. "So you finally admit it. He was worn out from your... acrobatics of the night before." He nodded to himself as Blair flushed crimson with hot anguish and crushing guilt. "I always suspected it, but you would never come right out and say it. Blair," Simon laid a gentle hand on the trembling man's shoulder, "even if Jim -had- known he was going to die that day...I don't think he would have changed anything." Blair looked up at him tearily and Simon squeezed his shoulder before letting go. "He loved you. Unabashedly. Unreservedly. That's nothing to be ashamed of." 

"But I killed--" Blair's head rocked back by a sudden, stinging slap of Simon's open palm against his cheek. 

"Don't you even dare -intimate- that," the captain roared into the younger man's face. "It wasn't your fault!" He glared at Blair. "Repeat that back to me!" 

"Simon..." Blair tried, holding his reddening cheek. 

"NOW!" Simon barked, shoving the anthropologist backwards with open palms on his shoulders. 

"It wasn't..." Blair began, then had to stop and resalivate his suddenly dry mouth. "It wasn't my fault." 

"Do you believe that?!" Simon demanded. 

Blair stared into the captain's sharp, angry brown eyes for a moment, unsure of whether he was looking for an answer or censure. "Yes," he said quietly after a moment. "I... I think...I do." Gently, he laid the leather-bound diary on top of the desk whose hidden compartment had sprung open when he and Simon had tried to move it across the room to where the Good Will people could claim it in the morning. "But I still think that Jim knew what was going to happen. He was...wild that night." A hard swallow made the lump lessen enough for him to speak. "He was tender and gentle and a holy terror. He fulfilled every fantasy I'd ever had. He kept going; he wouldn't let me stop. I--" 

"-He- wouldn't let -you- stop," Simon repeated meaningfully, waiting for Blair to understand him. 

"Oh, my God. If he did know...if it was inevitable..." Blair said with a quiet sense of awe in his voice, "Jim gave me the most wonderful night of my life...to remember when he was gone." Tears welled in his blue eyes again, and he wiped them away with annoyance. "If he was alive, I'd kill him." 

Simon smiled at the inconsistency. "I'd hold him down for you." 

Blair laughed; it was short, wavery, nearly inaudible, but Simon heard genuine amusement in his voice. Amusement that had been missing for nearly six months. 

"Why don't you go check upstairs for anything left behind, while I take this box out to the car?" Simon suggested with an encouraging nod toward the steps leading to the loft. 

An exasperated look flashed across Blair's face. "There's nothing left up there, and you know it. The loft is all ready for its new owners to move in tomorrow. You just want to read what Jim wrote in his diary." He picked up the book and handed it to Simon. "Today's date." 

With a flash of annoyance of his own at being read so easily, Simon took the book and opened it to the current date. There, in his precise, militarily neat handwriting, Jim had written a poem: 

> __  
> The Sleepy Sentinel
> 
> Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep.  
> I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep.  
> Let no man reproach me again, whatever watch is unkept--  
> I sleep because I am slain. They slew me because I slept.

Simon's breathing became uneasy and he closed the book with a snap. 

"It's Kipling," Blair said softly into the silence. "Almost makes you wonder if good old Rudyard ever..." He shook his head. "Tell me again, Simon, that he didn't know." 

Simon swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I can't," he answered in a whisper. 

Without agreement, without another word, Blair picked up the box containing the last remnants of his life with Jim Ellison and followed Simon out of the loft.   
  


* * *

Email the author with comments.  
Use your browsers back button to return to your story selections or submit a [new](http://b-b-t.mit.edu/SXF/cgi-bin/senslash/storysearch.cgi) query.


End file.
